


I Choose You

by Ardatli



Series: Gotta Catch 'em All [2]
Category: Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Characters Playing Pokemon GO, First Meetings, M/M, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-08-04 09:15:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16344026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ardatli/pseuds/Ardatli
Summary: Billy might be spending a little too much time obsessing over the game, but how else is he supposed to get the attention of the cute gym leader in town?(A short-fiction diptych withLike No-one Ever Was. The stories can be read in either order.)





	I Choose You

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuse for this other than 'I wanted to.' Cover by the ever-amazing Cris-art.

**_Sunday:_ **

“What did we decide for lunch?” Kate asked, grabbing her sunglasses from her purse and sticking them on top of her head. “Shake Shack or Momosan?”

“Momosan’s closer and I’m being lazy today,” Billy decided firmly, shoving his phone into his courier bag and flipping the top over. “Who’s paying, every man for himself, or your dad’s credit card?”

“Please,” Kate snorted. “My father’s got enough; he wouldn’t notice if I charged dinner for twenty at the Plaza. Lunch is on me. Cass?” She looked up and across the living room of Cassie’s father’s small apartment, but Cassie didn’t answer right away. She was standing at the window looking down instead, and a grin spread across her face.

“C’mere!” Cassie coaxed, beckoning Billy over. “They’re back! It worked!”

Billy almost tripped over his own feet running across the room. There was no point at all in trying to look like he didn’t care, not in front of the girls. They knew everything anyway, and Kate’s laughter was kind. Cassie stepped aside to let him look, the window twelve stories up not nearly close enough.

There he was, that tall blond guy with shoulders like a football player, his phone out and what looked like a scowl on his face. The Pokégym attached to the fountain in the courtyard outside Cassie’s dad’s apartment building had been a bone of contention for a while now, the same trainer names popping up over and over again every time the red team took it back.

And the first time Billy had noticed _the guy_ was one night, maybe a week ago, while leaving Cassie’s place on his way home. Though really, noticed wasn't a strong enough word. Billy’d been staring so hard while crossing the street that he’d almost tripped into the just-poured concrete on the other side.

Tall, golden and unbelievably gorgeous, completely focused on his phone, _the guy_ hadn’t even noticed Billy was there.

It wasn’t until he’d gotten to the station and settled in to wait for the train that Billy had checked the game, saw the gym, and realized exactly who the hot stranger might have been.

Now… now he just had to be sure.

He had two buddies with him this time, one of whom Billy'd spotted at the gym once or twice before, and a third friend Billy’d never seen before today. “He looks pretty pissed off. Sniping the gym was a dick move,” he sighed.

“Pokémon’s just a game,” Cassie reassured him. “You wanted to see if he’d come back, and there he is. Now…” She watched her phone, half an eye on the guys down on the ground. “The big question – will they go for it again or not?”

“Don’t berry anyone if they do,” Billy cautioned her. “People sometimes give up when there’s an active defender.”

“Yeah yeah, I got it,” Cassie rolled her eyes at him, no real heat behind it. The trio a hundred feet below them seemed to be talking something over, then the gym battle animation kicked in. “Okay. Watch for it.”

Kate slipped in beside them, the three above watching the little group of three down beside the fountain. They looked like some kind of secret spy cabal, huddled in a circle and tapping their phone screens over and over again.

The gym fell, Blond Guy did a little victory dance, and Billy saw the smile grow on the face of his own reflection in the window. Okay, so it was cute. Over-invested, yes, but cute. And Billy certainly wasn’t one to talk. “Who’s in?” he asked, watching the dark-haired new guy stab the air with his finger like he was explaining a plan.

He went first, the gym rising red as he took his hand off the phone. “Blissey’s in first,” Kate reported over Cassie’s shoulder. “Trainer name KangKong. That’s the new guy. His friend put in a Slowking… trainer name PatriotX. Seriously?” Kate rolled her eyes. “They’ve got good defensive strategy, but their names are dumb. And that just leaves your dream man. Come on.”

Blond Guy stood scrolling through his phone for another minute. Billy leaned over to watch Cassie reload the screen. The same Snorlax from a few days ago reappeared in the gym, trainer name Hulkling. “That’s him,” he breathed out, a sigh of wonder as well as relief. “You were right.”

“Of course we were,” Kate replied with a grin, reaching over to ruffle his hair. He growled and ducked away from her hand, trying fruitlessly to finger-comb it back into submission. “The question is, now that you know, what are you going to do about it?”

* * *

Drop by Cassie’s place a lot more often, that was what he was going to do about it. Sure, Hulkling obviously had to play a lot of other places in the city, but that one gym was the only place Billy had run across him on any kind of regular basis.

Annnnd maybe Billy was showing off a little. He’d had his Kangaskhan in the gym when Hulkling and his friends had beaten it on Sunday; maybe throwing in some of Billy’s other super-rare trades would catch his attention.

It seemed to be working. At least Billy was getting his pokémon kicked out of the gym faster than before.

Which meant the _next_ -next step was to try to meet him… now that he had a single solitary idea of where the guy was likely to be.

But that idea was terrifying, and he groaned from where he was draped face down over the arm of Cassie’s dad’s couch. “I can’t do it,” he mourned, fingertips brushing the carpet underneath him. “Did you _see_ him? He’s gorgeous, and I’m… me. Odds are that he’s straight, too,” he added glumly.

“That’s quitter talk,” Cassie informed Billy, then sat on him. The air squeezed out of his lungs from her weight on his back, but he didn’t roll to dump her off. “I didn’t spend all last week clearing that gym with you over… and over… and over… to watch you wimp out now.”

“I thought you were okay with me coming here because you—oof—liked me.”

“That too, but the manhunt is a lot more entertaining than anything else we’ve been doing this summer. And his friend is kind of cute,” she added thoughtfully.

“You’re using my agony to find a homecoming date for yourself?”

“It’s called a win-win situation.”

“Does this win-win situation include one of you guys washing your dishes some time today?” Scott, Cassie’s dad, asked as he crossed the room to the fridge in the open-plan kitchen. “If Billy’s living here now, he needs to start pitching in on the chores.”

“Not now, Dad. We’re having a momentary crisis of confidence.”

Scott poured himself a glass of juice, closed the fridge and nodded sagely. “Ah. I’m intimately familiar with that kind of crisis. School, family, friends, or love life?”

“The total lack of that last one,” Cassie informed Scott solemnly, and Billy sighed.

“I’m still here, you know. I can hear you talking about me.”

“I have a suggestion that might help get your mind off things,” Scott suggested. Billy lifted his head, curious. The dishtowel that Scott threw landed on top of it, flopping down to cover his eyes. “Dishes.”

* * *

**_Saturday August 12th:_ **

Bryant Park, a big green space behind the New York Central Library, had been Cassie’s idea for Community Day. It was the best game play area close to her dad’s place, which meant the highest chance of accidentally running into the Team Valor players they were looking for. Billy hadn’t needed a lot of convincing before the day actually came, but now that they were in the park he was having major second thoughts.

Realistically, the best-case scenario was meeting, introductions, a moment of amused recognition, and never seeing the guy again.

Worst-case scenario, Hulkling was actually a big old ‘phobe and talking to him would get Billy’s butt kicked. (Not likely, not in public, but there was always the risk.)

Billy tugged nervously at the hem of his blue Team Mystic shirt, self-conscious despite the grins and thumbs-up from a few people in the park. He didn’t recognize any of them, and he started to relax a little more as the afternoon moved on and he didn’t see Hulkling anywhere.

(And then he was disappointed, because of course he wouldn’t be able to make up his mind how to feel.)

Until he did.

Small clusters of people were gathering at a statue with a gym attached, counting down the last couple of minutes before a level-five raid. Billy, Cassie and Kate were there, of course, sorting through catches and double-checking battle teams, when Cassie looked over Billy’s shoulder and hissed a soft warning.

“Don’t look now, but they’re here,” she explained, grinning. “Only two of them, worse luck—Hulkling and Patriot, assuming we got the tags right.”

“Oh no,” Billy breathed, freezing in place. Kate was already laughing at him and shaking her head, and he shook his right back at her. “I can’t look. Is he looking?”

Cassie glanced over again and shook her head as well. “Not right now. It’s safe.”

Billy took the chance, turning to take a quick peek, the closest he’d gotten to _the guy_ since that first time. And yeah, he was glad he had. And _not_ glad, all at the same time, because guys who looked like _that_ didn’t go out with guys like _him_ , even if Hulkling was interested in boys after all.

At least he looked about their age, even if he was twice Billy’s width in the shoulders and a good few inches taller.

“Okay, wow,” Billy sighed, looking away. “This was the worst idea we ever had.”

“If by ‘worst’ you mean ‘best,’” Kate prompted him instead. “He’s got one of those ‘Hi, My Name is’ stickers on. He wouldn’t have written his trainer code down if he didn’t want to meet people, so go over there and say hi.”

Billy dragged his hand through his hair, pushing the mess back off his face. “Mm-mmm. No. Not happening. I'll only melt down and make an idiot out of myself, and I can do that without humiliating myself in front of my crush at the same time.”

“He’s looking this way,” Cassie reported just as cheerfully. “Act natural.”

“What is natural? I can’t act natural. My natural is flailing and panic,” Billy explained, gesturing in the air as he spoke and the absurdity of the situation hitting him. All that work, waiting and pining, and he was literally twelve feet away… and refusing to do anything about it. Typical Kaplan, somehow.

“He’s checking you out,” Kate sing-songed, her grin infectious.

“He is not. Don’t make fun of me, Kate.” Billy pouted at her, resigned and trying to laugh it all off. “It’s not nice.”

“Raid’s open!” Cassie announced, and kept on teasing Billy anyway. “That was definitely a once-over, by the way. The gay is confirmed.”

“You can’t tell just from that.”

Billy snuck another peek anyway, but Hulkling and his friend were already huddled over their phones on the other side of the statue, ignoring the rest of the gathered group. Unless that was a head-turn, another check back—if it was he’d never know, because Billy looked away before he could find out if Hulkling was trying to make eye contact.

“No straight guy looks at another guy’s butt that way.”

“Just fight the raid and leave me to die.”

* * *

“Here,” Cassie recrossed the clearing as Community Day wound down, and shoved a slip of paper against Billy’s chest.

“Oof,” he complained half-heartedly, but reached up to take it from her anyway. A twelve-digit string of numbers marched across the paper in Cassie’s scrawling handwriting. Not a phone number. “What’s this?”

“Hulkling’s trainer code. I wrote it down because you’re chicken. Bawk bawk bawk-kaw.”

“I’m not chicken!”

“Biiiig chicken,” she teased, and kept on teasing him most of the way to the train station. Billy protested, and he complained, but he stuck the paper in his pocket anyway. And the moment he was sitting down and on his way home, he hit ‘add friend’ and typed in the code.

There was no reply for the longest time, and Billy was absolutely sure that Cassie had given him a fake code, _and_ that Hulkling had seen the request come in and denied it. Both at the same time.

Two hours later (not that he was counting _at all_ ), the message popped up. ‘ _You and Hulkling are now friends!’_

It shouldn’t have made him that happy, but Billy’d never been all that good at feeling things the way he ‘should.’

* * *

**_Sunday:_ **

“I should rename my buddy. No, I need to pick a new buddy altogether. Hulkling can see it on his friends page and this one isn’t cool enough.”

“I thought you said the Alolan Exxegcutors were your favourites?”

“They are, and I want a whole forest of them, which is why I need the candy. Maybe just a new name, then. Treebeard is awesome, but what if he thinks I’m a _nerd_?”

“I have some sad news for you, William. Prepare to be shocked.”

“Bite me, Lang.”

* * *

**_Thursday:_ **

“Are you still in my window?”

“Hey, Mr. Lang.”

“It’s a school night, Billy. Go home.”

* * *

**_Saturday:_ **

It was, Billy realized with a sigh, a very one-sided sort of flirting—an electronic pigtail-pull every time he snagged Hulkling’s gym out from under him, or sent a postcard from the gym he’d just reclaimed.

But unless he sucked it up and waited down at the fountain for him to show up in person, it wasn’t going to go any further than some vague online taunting.

It would help if he had any indication whatsoever that Hulkling had noticed any of the hints that Billy had been trying to send. He opened the program and scrolled idly through his friends list, poking the recent gifts.

And just about dropped his phone.

He’d asked for a sign, and there it was, printed across his screen in bold letters. Hulkling’s avatar, a gift he’d just opened from the gym they’d been fighting over, and Hulkling’s buddy… with a new name.

 _Wizzardsbane_ , the label proclaimed.

Billy's handle was  _Wizzard._

It could be coincidence, just a goofy dragon name that didn’t have anything to do with _him_ , except the Terry Pratchett tribute misspelling that Billy used for his trainer name was in there, and that was highly unlikely to be coincidence.

Billy flopped back on his bed, clutching his phone to his pounding heart. Okay, okay. “Breathe, Kaplan,” he reminded himself out loud, his voice strangled in the quiet of his bedroom. “Come on.”

Hulking had noticed him. Noticed and reacted and reached out, and Billy had no idea where to go with that information.

**Billy:** omg omg. What do??

_Screenshot.png attached_

**Cassie:** Show him you saw it, dummy!

 

Nothing good enough to be a reply came to mind immediately.

Billy woke up in the middle of the night with a flash of inspiration and fumbled for his phone in the dark. He knocked his glass of water over, splashing himself with cold. Jamming his finger at the screen, Billy tried to make the changes he’d come up with in his mostly-asleep state, then dropped his phone off the nightstand. Dammit. Also, fuck it. It could stay there.

Waking up again the next morning he was somewhat startled to discover that he’d set a Machamp as his buddy ( _good counter for Tyranitar; excellent strategy, asleep-me_ ) and had named it _Hulkbuster._

Not bad.

* * *

Hulkling didn’t seem offended, but he didn’t change his buddy’s name again either. The gift exchange was easy enough to keep up with, collecting a bunch of them from the fountain gym and sending one per day to Hulkling before he did anything else.

At least it was easy enough on a regular day, and on the weekends he usually had a chance to go and grab more gifts and reload. Except the High Holidays weren’t like regular weekdays. No school, no friends, just synagogue for the morning ( _all_ morning) and endless, dragging family dinners at night.

Day two of Rosh Hashanah, hour forty of the holiday, and Billy was already going nuts from all the togetherness. Cousins in the living room, grandparents in the kitchen, and even at shul there was no getting away from the “you’re _Rose’s_ grandson? Such a nice young man you’ve turned into! Have you got a girlfriend yet?” from the massed bubbe brigade.

Halfway through the Torah service Billy muttered an excuse to his dad and slipped out of the row of seats. But instead of bailing for the bathroom, he ducked into the coatroom and fished his phone out of his suit jacket pocket.

The muffled sound of the reader’s chanting carried through the doors, a rhythmic and solemn backdrop. He double-checked that everything on his phone was silenced before the opening theme could give him away, bouncing on his toes while he waited for the program to load. The bar crept along slowly, trying to find a connection with his single bar of signal. Almost, almost – there.

Billy relaxed, grinning like an idiot at the phone when he saw the gift waiting for him. Bryant Park, where they’d come so close to meeting—except Hulkling didn’t know that. He had probably guessed, because where else would Billy have gotten his trainer code, but-

“William Kaplan!”

_Oh shit._

She’d tiptoed up behind him without warning and now his mother was taking the phone from his hands, jaw set and her eyes narrowed. “You snuck out here in the middle of services to play on your phone? That’s the last straw, young man. You’re addicted to this game, and it’s interfering with your experiences of the real world.”

“Mom!” Billy reached for the phone, but it vanished into her purse before his fingers could close on the case. “I’m not! I was just waiting… for a text,” he lied, putting on hopeful eyes. “From Cassie. About the homework I missed from being out of school yesterday and today.” 

His mother’s mouth twisted, lips pressed together. She brought the phone back out of her purse _—_   _yes! —_ then swiped the screen. _Nooooo._

They both stood there, still and silent, as the ‘ _hazardous weather alert: storm_ ’ warning popped up. The cloudy sky image perfectly matched his mother’s expression.

_Boosted types: angry parental figures. Ugh._

His shoulders sagged, no excuses coming to mind quickly enough to make any difference. She turned off his phone entirely and it vanished into the gaping maw of her black leather purse.

“You can have it back once you’ve shown me you can be respectful. Too much electronic gaming has been shown to have adverse effects not only on sleep and situational awareness, but on long-term cognitive function.” She poked him in the middle of his forehead for emphasis. “Now get back in there before you miss the shofar.”

* * *

“Dad, please. Make her give my phone back! It’s been literal _days_ , and I’m missing everything!”

“You heard her, Billy. A little perspective is a valuable thing.”

“But the rest of my _life_ could be at stake here!”

“You have no idea how right you are, kiddo.”

“What?”

“In that if your mother catches you taking your phone out of her purse, she’ll murder you. And if she does I’m not turning her in.”

* * *

Five days. Five. Freaking. Days. Until his mother relented under the pleading and moping and handed him his phone over the dinner table. Billy’d sworn up and down that he’d be a lot more aware of when, where, and how much he was playing, that he absolutely didn’t need to do any kind of course or reading on internet addiction, and yes, he was going to go do homework now, thanks for dinner, bye.

Closing his door behind him, he opened the game and watched the treacherously slow loading bar scroll micron by micron across the bottom of his screen. What if Hulkling had decided it wasn’t worth keeping up with him after all? Five days was a long time – long enough for him to have moved on, or met someone, or –

The game loaded, and Hulkling’s buddy was still named with Billy’s call-out. He huffed out a puff of air and poked at the coloured gift icon. Naturally he was all out of the fountain gifts, thanks _mom_ , but at least he still had a couple of random others in storage. The comic shop would have to do.

He sent the gift winging out over the ether.

Less than a minute later, the pop-ups dropped down on the screen.

_‘Hulkling received five items from your gift!’_

_‘Hulkling has sent you a gift!’_

… hunh. That had been awfully fast, even if he’d already had the program open. Had he been _waiting_ for Billy to show up again?

It could be complete coincidence, but he’d take it. Billy sagged against his door, a smile creasing his face. _He was waiting for me._

* * *

Hulkling apparently lived near Bryant Park and the library — that or he spent a lot of time there, because the gifts he started sending were more from that neighbourhood than anywhere else. At first, anyway.

Billy agonized over the choices of which ones to send back, staring at the list of postcards. None of them were representative enough to say _this is me_. He needed to get a better collection of options—cards that would show Hulkling that Billy was fun, smart, geeky but not a dork… the kind of guy someone else would want to get to know.

It was a pretty big ask from a stack of digital pictures of random New York locations.  

Worth a shot, though.

Ghostbusters building and the baby Cthulhu, definitely. Midtown comics, ditto. Was sending something from the Met cool and interesting, or pretentious? He split the difference and sent Hulkling a postcard of the weird Leafy Man gargoyle thing from outside the museum instead.

And just in case Hulkling was doing the same thing, Billy screenshotted the gifts before he opened them. If there _was_ a message encoded in them, he wasn’t about to let it go un-translated.

* * *

**_Friday September 21:_ **

**Katie:** Are you meeting us for community day? I’m picking Cass up at her mom’s tomorrow at 1.

 **Billy:** I can’t. Not in town. :( Visiting my Bubbe upstate this weekend.

 **Katie** : I thought the High Holidays were over?

 **Billy** : No. They never end. Just when you think you’re done, another one comes along.

 **Billy:** Sukkot starts Sunday night, so we’re all going up to help her put up her sukkah.

 **Katie:** Aw, suck. I’ll keep an eye out for Hottie McHotterson.

 **Billy:** DO NOT TALK TO HIM.

 **Katie:** Don’t you trust me?

 **Billy:** No.

 **Katie:** …Smart. I’ll behave. Say hi to your brother for me.

 **Billy** : Which one? There are three of them.

 **Katie** : The Kaplan old enough to date and who isn’t afraid to make a move. ;)

 **Billy** : yeah yeah. You’re way too good for him, for the record.

 **Katie** : That’s what makes it fun.

* * *

The day after the Community Day that Billy hadn’t been able to spend in the city, he rolled over when his alarm went off and reached for his phone. It was a sleepy sort of bashing at the screen that turned off the alarm, and total autopilot that had him opening the game and blinking blearily at the loading screen.

And a minute later, sitting bolt upright, adrenaline coursing through his system. Okay fine, so Hulkling had taken the gym back while Billy had been on the road with his family, driving back from his grandmother’s house. That wasn’t news.

But the gift from Billy’s usual comic shop — _that_ was news. Hulkling had never been that far uptown before. Holy crap.

Had he been at the store when Billy was there? He’d have noticed, surely. Worse—he’d been there while Billy was out of town. Maybe he’d gone _hoping_ to find Wizzard there.

Billy swallowed hard.

And then he sent one back. The same comic shop. _His_ comic shop.

_Sorry I missed you._

It was a signal, it had to be. All systems go.

* * *

They spread out across Cassie’s kitchen table. Kate hunched over her laptop, glasses perched on top of her head, while Billy and Cassie flipped through his screenshot gallery, tablet and notepaper scattered in piles in front of them.

“Zoo Mural- is that the most recent one?” Kate tapped furiously at her keyboard, the map of the island and surrounding boroughs populating rapidly with little red and blue flags.

“Timing doesn’t matter,” Cassie objected. “He could have picked up any of the gifts any time over the last few weeks.”

“Okay, fair.”

Billy pushed his chair away from the table and leaned over Kate’s shoulder, arms resting on the back of her chair. “What’s the verdict, Sherlock?”

“Please. I’m so much more of an awesome Doctor Watson,” Kate shot back, flipping her long black hair and flashing him a grin. “His home base is Brooklyn, no question. Over sixty percent of his gifts come from that side of the bridge, clustered in one neighbourhood and along a couple of main streets. Most of the rest are midtown, so I’m guessing that he goes to school near the library. That or he’s homeschooled and does most of his work from there.”

“Brooklyn’s mostly hipsters,” Cassie noted, elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. “But other than that it’s actually really nice.”

“Planning to move out?” Scott headed through the kitchen on his way to the living room, pausing to look over the investigation currently under way. “You’re all a bit young to be looking for real estate.”

Cassie rolled her eyes affectionately. “Hardly. We’re cross-referencing Pokéstops and Pokémon Go gyms to real-world locations and looking for patterns.”

Scott’s eyebrow went up. “Interesting way to spend a Friday night. Is that a geography project?”

“We’re finding Billy his dream boy,” Kate replied with a sweet smile.

Scott blinked. “Hunh.” He glanced at Billy, a frown creasing his forehead, then nodded. “Does dream boy know that there’s an APB out for him?”

“Daaaaad,” Cassie groaned, rolling her eyes.

“Alright, alright. I’ll, ah. Leave you guys to it?” He seemed unsure whether he should or not, but backed through the kitchen door again and away.

* * *

Sacked out on his bed, Billy unfolded the printout Kate had left him with and ran through their findings again. It was eerie how much he might know about the guy just from the footprints he’d left behind in the game. Was Hulkling doing the same thing, keeping lists and making notes, and wondering who Billy was in return?

Hulkling had a lot of the same interests as Billy, that was one of the main things. His path through the world took him to comic shops and video game stores, the library (a lot), Bryant Park, and a stack of cool art installations around Brooklyn.

Was he a street artist? He seemed to know a lot of Pokéstops with graffiti tags. Unless—and that was the problem, the not-knowing—it was just that those were the only ones near him.

Back to what he knew for sure. Hulkling was his age, or close to it—none of the gifts had come from any of the college buildings. He was more than just a casual gamer, and had no problem getting around town to play.

That led into a long, drawn-out fantasy of what it would be like to know him. To text back and forth during free periods at school and make plans to meet up after class. To hang out with him, planning lazy weekend afternoons around the game. Or even just using it as an excuse to wander midtown, stop somewhere for lunch, end up walking hand in hand along the pathways around the perimeter of Central Park.

Billy had friends, but he’d never had a boyfriend—someone who lit up when he walked in the room, who missed him when he was gone, who would smile and tease with inside jokes meant for the two of them alone.

It was a really, _really_ nice daydream.

* * *

And a daydream was all it stayed for another week and change, until Billy started to notice a change in the pattern. Checking back on the screenshot gallery of Hulkling’s gifts proved-

Oh man. It proved that he _wasn’t_ wrong.

It started innocuously enough, noticing that there was always a gift waiting for him after fifth period. He started checking before the class started, and there was nothing there, then by the time he got out again at 2:30… a gift. And always the same one now, the comic store down the street from the Starbucks that had become his daily ‘drown my sorrows in a caramel iced-cap’ item collection (and brooding) place.

So the next day, Billy left the game open and his phone on vibrate during fifth period Math, balanced on his knee under his desk.

Paying attention during lecture was harder than usual, his mind constantly drifting to the phone. _Was that a vibration? No, I think that was. Can I check it now? Come on, turn your back-_

Halfway through the class, two pm or so, once he’d gotten used to the faint weight of it there and was head down absorbed in the problems they were supposed to be working through, the phone actually buzzed.

Billy jumped, startled, whacking his knee against the bottom of his desk and sending his phone spinning across the scuffed linoleum floor. The teacher turned to glare at him and he snapped his head back down to stare at his paper.

His eyes flicked up to fix on the phone as it came to a slow, lazy stop… underneath his twin brother’s desk. Tommy covered it with his foot and, once the teacher was back to writing equations on the board, leaned over to pick it up.

And keep it, despite Billy’s heated glares.  

After class, Tommy handed him back his phone with the eye-roll to end all eye-rolls. “You’re really gunning for Mom to take it away from you again, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Billy muttered under his breath, checking to make sure the screen wasn’t broken, and that it still turned on. Victory. “If you really cared, you’d have installed the game when she swiped mine.”

“What, and lose my phone to you for five days because you couldn’t sneak better than that?” Tommy clapped him on the back companionably. “Not a chance, little brother. You sink or swim on your own.”

“That’s real brotherly love there. Keep that up and I’m telling Kate that you used to wet the bed.”

* * *

The gift was there, as Billy suspected it would be.

Two pm. The comic shop on Columbus. It was an invitation. But for what day?

And if he messed up this guess, would he ever get another chance?

* * *

**_Community day, October 21:_ **

Tommy leaned against the door frame of Billy’s bedroom, watching Billy desperately try and comb his hair into something resembling a style. It wasn’t working, and Tommy’s snickering really wasn’t helping.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Billy asked pointedly. He stared at his own stupid face in the mirror, then ran his fingers through his hair to mess it up again. It fell where it wanted to, and he gave up.

“Only if you don’t want me to come along,” Tommy offered, a suggestion that Billy met with an incredulous look. “In case he turns out to be an axe murderer or something.”

“And what would you do if he was?” Billy asked, curious. “Bleed on me?”

“Act as a witness for the defense,” Tommy shot back, grinning. “Seriously though. If you need backup, holler. You never know what kind of crazy is out there on the intertubes.”

That was almost touching. Billy smiled at his twin, and nodded. “That’s almost sweet of you, Tommy. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. Have fun with your zoo.”

Billy rolled his eyes. “It’s a pokedex, not a-” but the hallway was empty, and Tommy was already gone.

* * *

Billy got to the shop a couple of minutes before two, his breath heaving in his chest as he ran the last couple of blocks toward the store. He skidded to a halt at the door, sagged against the wall, and looked around. No sign of him. But there were still a couple of minutes to go, so Billy had time.

Time to stress himself out, that was what he had. To run through every possibility in his mind as the minutes ticked onward.

What if Hulkling had changed his mind.

What if Hulkling hadn’t been sending signals at all and Billy was there waiting for nothing.

What if Hulkling had gotten to the shop, looked at Billy, and ran the other way while Billy had been looking down the street in the other direction.

“What if I’m an enormous idiot wasting my afternoon waiting for something that will never happen,” he sighed out loud.

Two-fifteen. Nothing. People wandered in and out of the shop, but none of them were gorgeous teenage blonds.

What if Hulkling had done whole thing as a giant practical joke, and was laughing at Billy from somewhere across the street?

Billy’s phone buzzed and he jumped.

 

 **Kate:** So?

 **Billy:** Nothing yet.

 **Kate:** Damn. :( Want me to come pick you up?

 **Billy:** … maybe. Gonna give it another ten.

 

Why? Because he was a masochist, that was why. Because he really enjoyed someone making a fool of him and waiting out in public for the inevitable point-and-mock. Because he’d been an idiot for believing that once, just this once, he could be part of something amazing.

Everyone could see him standing there outside the store. Somehow they knew just by looking at him that he’d been stood up. Billy’s eyes stung, and he swiped at them with the heel of his hand before he could do something really babyish like cry.

He sucked in a deep breath and straightened, shoving his phone back into his pocket.

“Hey-” a voice said behind him.

Billy turned.

“Is, um. Is everything okay?”

Billy couldn’t speak, his mouth gone dry even as he tried to form words. _Him it’s him it’s him._ He was even more gorgeous up close, if that was even possible, his eyes the most impossible shade of blue. Billy’d never been close enough before to see what colour they were. 

“Sorry? Yeah —yeah,” he blurted out, because that was super-intelligent, but his brain had somehow become entirely disconnected from his vocal cords and only stupid things were coming out.

_It’s him. He’s here._

He had freckles, a faint band of the softest brown flecks, that crossed the bridge of his nose. And a chin. Of course he had a chin, but he had a _chin_ , a squared-off jaw still soft around the edges, and earrings that marched along the rims of both his ears.

 _Full of hipsters._ Except piercings were more punk, weren’t they? The rest of him didn’t look punk, but-

Oh no. He was still waiting for Billy to say something. “I was waiting for someone,” Billy tried to put words together in an order that made sense, hope and joy rising and drowning out everything else. “But I thought maybe they weren’t going to show.”

_And then you did!_

“If you’re Wizzard,” Hulkling said haltingly, “Then I’m the one you were waiting for. I’m Hulkling. And I thought the same thing, except I was waiting for you. Inside,” he confessed, and were the tips of his ears going a little bit pink? “I’m, um. Glad you didn’t leave.”

“It _is_ you,” Billy blurted out, then slammed his mouth shut again before he could keep babbling. It didn’t work, the words pushing themselves out anyway. “That is, um. I was pretty sure, but you never know with internet handles, and … yeah. Hi. It’s good to meet you in person. What’s your real name, by the way?”

_Oh brother. Serve you right if he laughs and walks away._

He didn’t laugh. Instead he said “Teddy,” and held out his hand.

“Hi, nice to meet you. I’m Billy.” Billy took his hand and shook it, the feel of Teddy’s skin doing something twisty and funny to his insides. “If they’d added a PVP option in the game, this is where we’d have to challenge each other to a battle,” he joked, only reluctantly letting go.

Teddy laughed, ducking his head, and had anyone ever been so adorable? He looked up, still smiling, and Billy was done for. “How about grabbing Starbucks instead? There’s apparently a good one not far from here.”

What? _Oh._ The gifts, because he’d been tracking them too, and now Billy was smitten all over again. “Yeah, there is. And I’d like that.”

Date. He was going on a date. Getting coffee was basically a date, and he was going to keep thinking of it like that until Teddy told him otherwise. Because Teddy kept sneaking glances at him as they started walking, smiling and laughing at even the dumb things that Billy kept saying, and Billy was getting more confident by the moment that he might just be Teddy’s type.

He’d never really thought of himself as lucky, but right now everything looked like it was coming up Billy.

It was worth testing, just in case this was some kind of dream.

“… I don’t suppose you’d consider trading me that Smackdown Tyranitar.”

Teddy smiled, laughed, and shook his head. “Not on your life, Mystic boy.”

Okay, so that had been pushing his luck. “Oh well. I had to try.” Not a dream, then, or some kind of magical wish-fulfillment fantasy. Billy huffed out a soft laugh, and tucked his hands in his pockets, leaves crunching under his feet. Teddy was real, he was smiling at Billy, and on this gorgeous fall day a million different things all suddenly seemed possible.


End file.
